Sunburst over Grassland....my Brook, in Silkystones

With the leftovers from this small shawl, I knit a proper gauge swatch....

And decided to knit the Brook cardigan from the Silkystones Collection. I liked the idea of a neat little cardi to wear over a top in the evening....or when you have to pop into one of those cold air conditioned stores in the heat of summer! It is hard to dress appropriately when it is blazing hot outside and freezing cold inside.....
No chance for that just yet....it is still quite cold here in Southern Ontario....and with most of the Great Lakes frozen, the forecast is for a cooler than normal Spring.....
Anyway, Brook was selected....but I didn't like the idea of those curved fronts....so I chose to go with straight fronts - as the button closure would naturally pull the fronts together and therefore a bit up.....

Knitting went along just fabulously....this is a lovely yarn with some silk slubs here and there....and the colours in this Grassland shade are gorgeous!

Soon I was sewing up the underarm seams, and setting in the sleeves!

The scariest part of any cardigan for me....is when you have to pick up the stitches for the front bands!This design has you pick up the front, around the neck and back down the other front,and since I'd not only changed the front, I think I actually made it a tad longer in the body,I had to do some math with my row/stitch gauge,and decided to pick up a stitch every 3 out of 4 rows.

I seem to be adding length to just about everything I knit these days......hmmm.....

Everything was looking good....time for a bath in Soak.....

Silk is fragile when wet, while being amazingly strong when dry....so when wet, handle with care. Once the sweater was in the "Soak", I just left it alone....a gentle pat just to make sure it was all in there. 15 minutes later, and I used my Soak bucket to pour out the water, holding the handles together with one hand while the other hand held the sweater still all scrunched up if you know what I mean....and I just pressed out as much water as I could like this....I tried not to let the sweater stretch at this point.
I say "stretch" because I actually did a test on a strand of this yarn.....measured it, marked it with stitch markers, washed it, dried it, and it DID NOT STRETCH!
The Knitted Fabric does grow....because the nice puffy stitches you have when you knit the garment flatten out and the fabric takes on a fabulous drape.
Two days it took on towels in the bath room.....but when dry, it's gorgeous and soft....and I just needed to add a button to the front.

This is when I first tried it on.....it is pulling a bit at the bust....that is a common problem for me :)so the natural texture of the fabric is pulled and flattened,which makes the bottom of the sweater look crinkly....

I hope you don't mind me sharing these less than perfect shots.....but I post them here as I am not a stick thin model...and maybe you'd enjoy seeing a sweater on someone bigger than a XS?laughing.....

It's still cold and frightening in Southern Ontario....so hubby and I went in search of some Summer type weather...to the Butterfly Conservatory in Cambridge, ONwhere everything is nice and green....and Hot and Humid for thegorgeous inhabitants!

Sometimes you are surrounded by "flocks" of butterflies....and you have to stand stillso that you don't hurt anyone!

The lighting here wasn't great for photos.....as it was one of those brightsunny cold days....and the sun was streaming in through the glass roof of the conservatory!

The sun from above gave me shadows where I didn't want shadowsand the glare washed out my hair...well....what can you do?

There are benches along the butterfly walkway....and I took a moment to check a message that had come in.

While this was a fun adventure on a cold Spring day after a horrendously cold and miserable Winter, it seemed strange to be wearing a silk/linen blend sweater with a tank top, jeans and winter boots!

So I guess I'll have to take more photos later....when it is truly Summer here in Life LackaDaisiCal!

The snow on the deck got away from usduring the "great power outage"and eventually we had to just dig around the outsideto keep L&D from being able to get over the railings....it was touch and go there for a while..Daisy recommends that you visit...

Thanks for sharing your sweater -- I fell in love with the Trellis sweater in the silkystones book, but not being a crocheter, bought yarn for Cascade instead. And I LOVE seeing real people in their sweaters and other knitwear -- being "real" myself, it helps me think through style and fit decisions. Yours, by the way, looks great.